HistoryBook · 1995
Silencing the Past
Michel-Rolph Trouillot
Trouillot argues that power shapes historical production at every stage, from the making of sources to the writing of narratives. He tests it on the Haitian Revolution, which Western accounts treated as unthinkable even while it was happening, and on the Alamo and Columbus. The link is the twentieth anniversary edition from Beacon Press.
Why you should read this
A foundational text in the anthropology of history, arguing that silences enter the historical record at the moment a fact is created rather than only when it is written up, with Haiti serving as the central case for how power shapes memory. It suits readers already committed to historiography rather than newcomers.
- Field
- History
- Form
- Non-fiction
- Published
- 1995
- Themes
- HistoriographyHistory
